Tom Blair: It’s no easy job finding a job

A job-hunting Kurt Bauer ﻿has a resume packed with 20 years of executive experience in communications and marketing. Still, hard times call for creative measures. In the current employment environment, he’s betting on friends and colleagues for help. Bauer sent out an email this week offering to pay anyone who can help him nail a job. It works this way: For each face-to-face interview someone secures for him with a San Diego hiring manager for a “career, salaried position,” he says he’ll pay $50. If he wins the job, it’s another $500 — $250 after his first day, another $250 after his first 90 days. And on his one-year anniversary, he’ll pay 1 percent of his gross salary. “The more the job pays me, the more you get,” says Bauer, who’s looking forward to writing some checks.

The wandering I: With the “American Idol” show filmed in October aboard the USS Midway Museum airing Sunday night, the Midway is launching its own talent search at www.midway.org where San Diegans can sign up for an audition to sing the national anthem at its July Fourth celebration — for an audience of 3,500 … Mayor Jerry Sanders can expect a chilly reception in Washington, D.C., today, with temperatures expected to be in the 20s for his Mayors for Freedom to Marry kickoff and a meeting with Homeland Security officials on San Diego funding. Weather explains why he flew out of San Diego late last night and returns this afternoon … The 800 guests expected for Saturday night’s Friends of Israel Defense Forces gala shouldn’t expect a lighthearted after-dinner chat. Keynoting the dinner at the Manchester Grand Hyatt: Israeli Vice-Prime Minister and former chief of military intelligence Moshe Ya’alon, ﻿who blasted the Obama administration this week, charging election-year considerations were behind its caution over tough U.S. sanctions on Iran.

Media watch: Rod Luck, who drew big ratings for KUSI-TV during his 18-year run, has been having a string of bad luck. He underwent his eighth surgery in two years on Wednesday at UCLA Medical Center. After an earlier spine operation left him with traumatized vocal chords, surgeons performed an implant to realign the chords. Since June, Luck says, “I’ve sounded like a much cheaper version of Marlon Brando in “The Godfather.” … Lynda Martin, ﻿who left her a.m. gig on San Diego 6 TV’s morning news a year ago to concentrate on family, has a new morning job. She started this week as news anchor on KOGO FM 95.7/AM 600.

Connectivity: Paul Bloom ﻿notices the feds have been shutting down medical marijuana dispensaries. And the company that makes Hostess Twinkies has filed for bankruptcy. “A coincidence?” says Bloom. “I think not.”